Our South Island tour begins

Picton, Havelock, Nelson and Tapawera

Setting off from Picton

Three days into our tour, we’ve cycled across the top of the South Island and started our journey south.

We eased into our ride, taking the train from Christchurch to Picton and cycling only as far as Havelock on day one. Day two was a bit more of a challenge, with a longer harder ride on the main highway to Nelson. And today (day three), we’ve been completely off-road, taking the relatively easy Great Taste trail to Tapawera.

The Tour Aotearoa route is designed to take the safest possible cycling route from one end of the country to the other. It makes use of existing off-road cycle trails and quieter back roads that help connect one place to another. But in some places, it’s necessary to resort to sections of state highway (although it steers well clear of the busiest roads like State Highway One.)

So, for the first section from Picton to Havelock, we cycled along the scenic Queen Charlotte Drive rather than the busier highway. It’s a slow winding road that follows the coastline around lots of wee bays. It's very pretty, with native bush covering the surrounding hills, great views over the Marlborough Sounds and some beautiful beaches on the way. (There's also an off-road alternative, the Link Pathway, but we avoided that after a mixed experience cycling in Marlborough last year.)

Ngakuta Bay

Despite being the middle of a long weekend (with absolutely stunning weather), the road wasn't very busy and we had a relaxing ride. It was a short 36 kilometres, with just enough undulations for us to feel we’d had a workout.

Havelock is a small town - its marina provides a gateway to the Marlborough Sounds and it’s known for its mussels but, otherwise, there's not much going on. A good place to overnight.

For the next stage to Nelson, the Tour Aotearoa route requires taking the highway as far as Pelorus bridge (about 19 kilometres) and then detouring over a four wheel drive road known as the Maungatapu Track. It’s a grade 4 (advanced) track for mountain bikers, with rocks the size of babies’ heads in places, and it's steep - so most people end up walking few kilometres near the top.

That didn't sound like much fun to us so we opted for the alternative route - staying on the main highway and braving the traffic instead. We planned our trip so we’d be riding this section on a Sunday (fewer trucks on the road) and we left Havelock early so we had a good couple of hours with little traffic. And, other than a little bit of early morning mist, that worked well.

We had two saddles to climb - one (the Rai) was only about 240 metres, which we managed without any great difficulty. There was plenty of shoulder to ride in and we enjoyed coming back down the other side. The second (over the Whangamoas) was harder - with a longer steeper climb, often no shoulder to ride in, lots of tight corners and more cars on the road.

Overall though, we felt Ok and it was a good test for us ahead of our ride down the West Coast (when we’ll also be cycling on the main highway and will have some bigger hills to climb).

Near the top of the Whangamoas

The bonus of getting an early start was arriving in Nelson in time for a lazy lunch by the river, followed by a swim and walk along Tahunanui Beach. A great day.

Heading to Tahunanui, Nelson

One of the challenging things about cycling in New Zealand is that there can be big distances between towns and limited accommodation options in small places. So, some days on this trip, we’ve opted for a shortish cycling day in order to position ourselves for a fuller day of cycling. Today, we’ve only come 60 kilometres ahead of what we expect to be a much harder and longer day tomorrow (a longer distance, more climbing and mostly gravel roads).

But everyone does things differently. We met two cyclists in Nelson who had gone over the Maungatapu Track in the morning and were planning to cycle on to Tapawera after lunch - more or less doing our two days in one. They were planning to get to Bluff in two weeks (with no rest days) whereas we’ll take three weeks and are being careful not to go too hard, too early.

For today's ride to Tapawera, we followed a section of the Great Taste trail. The route goes along a short section of coastline before heading inland through small towns and horticultural areas to Spooner's Tunnel, the country's longest disused rail tunnel (1.3km). It's a gradual incline most of the way, and then a short downhill on to Tapawera. We had a (mostly) gentle ride and cycled at a fairly relaxed pace - although our legs and butts are definitely starting to feel sore after a few days in the saddle.

Tapawera has a great climate for growing hops and we cycled by many orchards on the way in. The town itself is a sleepy place with a pub, a church, a school and a few shops. Just what we need for a restful night before a big day tomorrow.